Yeah, so anyway... I wrote that article earlier this week about why I don't like the current version of Lara Croft. I expected a bit of flack for it - and, indeed, I had a few tweets aimed at me implying that I had some sort of patriarchal agenda, or was attention-seeking - but for the most part people seemed to be aligned with my sentiments.

However, I did nevertheless get a load of grief from it in a rather weird, tangential, and unexpected, sense.

In short, while discussing it on Twitter, I drew a parallel between the new and cheerless Tomb Raider series and the DC movie universe. You can read that tweet above. I mean, whatever your feelings about Marvel movies, you can't - on any level - argue that they aren't wildly successful just in commercial terms. It's an undeniable fact that, over the last 10 years, Marvel - under the watch of Kevin Feige - has grown into the biggest entertainment franchise on the planet. 

And, by comparison, DC has failed to achieve the same with its movies. Wonder Woman is great of course - adopting some of the escapist lightness of tone that Marvel manages to balance with the more dramatic moments and action beats - and this was reflected in its box office. The Zack Synder-led DC movies did okay, but failed to land a Marvel-sized hit, and - crucially - are simply  not as beloved or well-received as Marvel films.

That's what I was rather clumsily getting at, rather than bringing my own opinions on those movies into it. Although, y'know, I struggled with Man of Steel, Dawn of Justice, and Suicide Squad. Though admit that I enjoyed Justice League more than expected (albeit perhaps because my expectations were so low). I loved Wonder Woman and I'm very much looking forward to Shazam (again, because the trailer suggests it has learned lessons from Marvel).

Anyway. None of that was contained in my tweet, which is perhaps why a mob of furious DC movie fans - clearly searching for criticism of the films they love (as none of them follow me, and wouldn't have otherwise seen the tweet) - sought me out to tell me why I was wrong. 

It was inevitable, but Sony has announced that it's copying Nintendo, and releasing a miniature version of its original PlayStation. The PlayStation Classic - due later this year - will arrive with 20 pre-loaded games (including Final Fantasy VII, Jumping Flash, R4 Ridge Racer Type 4, Tekken 3 and Wild Arms).

​So, that's exciting, probably.

To celebrate this news, here are a bunch of things which anybody who owned a PlayStation will remember... WITH THEIR MINDS.

I'm not a misogynist but... any time you open an opinion with such a statement then something has gone a bit wrong.

Nevertheless, I want to talk about Tomb Raider - specifically the character of Lara Croft - and I have no option but to do so from the position of being a man. Albeit a man who has written scripts professionally for almost 20 years, and has a bunch of awards and nominations which he can shove in your mouth if you decide to tell him he's wrong about this. 

You see, I'm some way into the new game Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the third in the Lara origin series which began back in 2013. I've not played enough yet to feel I'm ready to review it, but I've played enough to know this: I don't care for the story, or for Lara Croft. In fact, I actively dislike her. I mean, I hadn't exactly warmed to her murdering ways over the previous two games, but I went into this one with something of an open mind. 

Unfortunately, within the first couple of hours of the game, Lara has directly caused a tsunami which has killed thousands of people - including, on-screen, a child - and stabbed a jaguar in the ear with a sharp bit of metal. Alright, the jaguar was trying to eat her, and Lara has always killed animals, but never has it been done on screen so graphically, with the player mashing the square button to shove the blade right into the animal's brain, with a nice spurt of blood.

​I mean, what were they thinking?!? In movies the Save the Cat moment is a point early on where the lead character - even if they're otherwise reprehensible people - does something selfless, in order to make them more likeable, so the viewer will buy into their story arc. In Shadow of the Tomb Raider this is replaced with the double whammy of the drown-everyone-and-stab-the-cat-in-the-brain moment. 

Worse still, Lara's best friend Jonah even seems to go off her a bit. If secondary characters' responses to our antagonist tell the audience what they should be feeling, then clearly Shadow of the Tomb Raider is telling us that Lara is an unlikeable dick. 

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we all do it. I mean, even if a tramp had the magical ability to bestow unlimited riches upon you in return for a kiss, it's unlikely you'd plant one on the mouth if his lips were smeared with dog dirt. Actually, I probably would do that. But anyway. 

Sadly, video games have reached a point where there's a decent amount of work and skill and money that goes into today's unremarkable, identikit, game covers.

It wasn't always the case - as evidenced by this exhaustive gallery of the worst, most wrong-headed, and poorly-conceived Commodore 64 box art...

True story: last month, while I was still in bed on the morning I was due to go on holiday, a spider fell from the ceiling and landed on my nose. Being a frightful wuss, I howled like a startled bonobo, leapt to my feet, smashed the bed apart with a chair, set fire to both chair and bed, and then moved out of my home for ever.

Unfortunately, such were my cat-like reflexes, the spider never had the chance to bite me, and I didn't develop any spider-powers. Indeed, I was disappointed to learn later that I couldn't even excrete silk from my anus. And believe me - I tried. I even ate a taffeta scarf! 

What sort of actual spider-powers does Spider-Man actually have anyway? He can stick to walls, and that's about it. Spiders do this because they have special hairs on their tentacles or feet or whatever they are. Do we ever learn that Spider-Man has hairy hands and feet? And if so, how do the hairs work through his shoes and gloves? Because, let's face it, even his other most notable "spider" power - spinning webs, any size - is something he invented, rather than a natural ability.

I'd like to see him adopt some other spider traits, like the courting ritual of the male wolf spider, who taps on "dry leaves" to attract a lady friend. Or maybe he could develop "pedipalps" - a pair of appendages between his teeth and his legs, which he uses during mating to transfer sperm from a special "sperm web" right up the female's lady parts. Horribly, some male spiders even rip off their own pedipalps to bung up the female so that other spiders can't go there.

That's all pretty horrific and graphic - not least when you spend upwards of an hour thinking about a human "spider-man" doing something similar - but it's just how it is. Nature is a misogynistic freakshow, and David Attenborough should be ashamed of himself for promoting it. 

Fortunately, while Sony's Spider-Man does take some liberties with the character, this is one area that their new game stays away from. 

The Internet; we take it for granted now, but once upon a time - not so long ago - it was a brand new thing, and nobody really knew what you were meant to do with it. TV shows, magazines, and the producers of stock images, did their best to explain it back in the 90s, in a variety of bizarre ways.  Shockingly, however, time would prove many of their predictions to be spot-on.

Here are 14 images from the 90s which succeeded in predicting what the Internet would become.

The PlayStation 2 is dead - dead in a hole like a dead worm (best metaphor). Severing the final thread of ongoing connection to the 155 million-selling system first released 18 years ago, Sony has closed down the console's aftercare service in Japan.

The PS2 is synonymous with many things - including that unappealing logo, backwards compatibility, and the colour black. It was, in short, the best-selling games console of all time, and this final bullet in its coffin is as good a reason as any to pay tribute to some of the quirkier games which dangled their whimsy in front of its face. 

Because, you see, the PS2 was nothing if not a rostrum of incongruity.

WOT?

Jason Robertson - the man who rummages down the backs of YOUR sofas - has provided us with yet another classic edition of Digitiser, not seen for 23 of your English years.

This time we've a bumper weekend instalment, featuring Violet Berlin and the first part of an interview with Argonaut Software mogul Jez Sex (San). Interestingly, it also boasts a made-up letter by one "Danny Boyd", and an Old Game: Here that's also clearly made up, as it has been "sent in" by someone I used to sit next to at school.

Also: see if you can find the hilarious way I used to think "monkeys" was spelled. Given how frequently I'd write about moneys, it would often be the catalyst for some merriment. 

Don't forget, if you've got some old VHS tapes - especially if they contain footage of you frolicking - to let Jason know.

I know this is really bad, but sometimes before deciding to read a book I look up the author, and if they have a promotional pic which makes them look like an idiot... I don't read the book. I know there's an irony here - that I am, you know, "judging a book by its cover" - but it's true. I mainly choose books based upon whether the author looks like somebody I'd happily go for a beer with.

If they look a bit odd, or wanky, or as if they're the sort of person for whom writing books is the only thing they've got going on in their life, I'll find something else to read. I know I'm a terrible person, but much as I like reading, I'm also massively judgemental, and don't want to read books written by some weirdo.

It might stem from the fact I myself write for a living, and view it as a job, and don't consider writing to be this magical thing, where the characters live in your head and have a life of their own and that. It's just making stuff up. Well, bully for you that you've got the single-minded perseverance to spend months writing down all that imaginary bollocks in return for a two grand advance and bragging rights.

Quick - get somebody to take a moody, black-and-white photo of you while you stand in front of some ivy, and squint off into the middle distance doing your "author face"... 

...What was this meant to be about again? Oh yeah. Here are 10 books which got turned into games.

Jason Robertson - teletext's apology for Indiana Jones - has once more been ferreting around in the fusty mausoleums of Pixeltopia. This time, he has unearthed another entire edition of classic Digitiser, not seen by human eyes since the 24th May 1994 - a year-and-a-bit into Digi's life.

For more on what Jason does, how he does it - and how to get in touch if you have any old VHS tapes you'd like to loan to his noble cause - bear lewd witness to his website: here.